If anything, the sad, dilapidated state of the Astrodome is a reflection of the City of Houston itself. Once the "Eighth Wonder of the World" the Astrodome was a touch point in South West Houston that reminded us of what the City could be. Along with Johnson Space Center the Astrodome is a relic of Houston's past. A past that represents a forward-thinking city whose visions of grandeur have been replaced with cheers for mediocrity.
Houston has always been a city of big. From the mammoth shopping center that is the Galleria to the Williams (then Transco) Tower to the Ship Channel to Beltway 8 the Houston (and Harris County) leadership of the past understood this, it nurtured the reputation and sought to push it forward at every available opportunity. Whatever it's faults, heat and humidity, hazy air, a relatively flat, featureless landscape, Houston always had the potential to provide good visual. Even today the view of Houston driving in on Hwy 288 is one of the prettiest you'll find anywhere.
Houston had visionaries as well. We all know about Judge Roy Hofheinz but there were a host of others as well. Oscar Holcomb for one, Mary Kay Ashley, Red Adair, Howard Hughes (OK, that's a reach I realize) and a host of others. From the 1960's through the 1980's Houston took pride in it's designation as "Space City" and seemed to have a pretty firm grasp on who (and what) it was. Granted, things weren't perfect, but Houston at least did "big" back then.
Fast forward to today.
Houston doesn't do big anymore, it does small. And, to be honest, it's not doing a great job handling small at the time being. Oh sure, Houston still builds some things, but they are nowhere near the scope of our past icons.
Take the Astrodome for example. We've replaced that with NRG Stadium, an airport hanger with a fairly useless retractable roof, and Minute Maid Park, a decent ballpark whose signature item is a miniature copy of the Green Monster in Boston and a silly hill in centerfield. Neither stadium makes you go "wow".
It's much the same with other recent Houston achievements. Roy Hofheinz had a basketball stadium named after him. Bill White had a promenade in a park. The Ship Channel bridge is a defining feature of Southeast Houston. Recently Mayor Annise Parker received accolades for painting a lane of traffic green.
The problem, as it has been for a while now, is a dearth of leadership in the area. The vision of George Mitchell, who founded the Woodlands, has been replaced by the silliness of David Crossley, who's idea of salvaging Houston is to carpet bomb suburbia. We've been convinced that 22 miles of light rail is some great achievement and that Christof Spieler "reimagining" the bus service away from transit-dependent areas is some kind of engineering miracle. Think about this: The first word uttered on the Moon was "Houston". Now "Houston" is only uttered when people want to poke fun.
Politically we're fed a constant diet of Critical Mass, whether or not spending money on traffic signs has a positive cost/benefit outcome when it comes to enforcing no phones in school zones and the potty questions that are stemming from HER Ordinance. We are saddled with a crop of Mayoral candidates who (in no particular order) think that leadership is about "fighting" and spouting inane platitudes (Turner), think that "solving" Houston's traffic mess means implementing a "multi-modal" transportation system that emphasizes bicycles and walking shoes (Garcia, who probably had to look up multi-modal [hint: It's after 'management' which he should probably also look up given the results of his tenure as Sheriff]), a perennial candidate who is desperately looking for small pockets of Caucasian support (Bell), a former Obama bundler and life-long Democrat who's importing transportation solutions from Malaysia while courting social conservatives (Hall), a political unknown whose candidacy feels like on the job training for a future City Council run (McVey), a politician whose main contribution to the city was the creation of a multi-million dollar slush fund to hand out work to engineering firms (Costello) and a town crier whose campaign is having difficulty handling the basics of sign-delivery (King, who had a very good week given the dual reports that were released suggesting he's right on city finances.)
Houston doesn't build things like the Galleria any more. Instead, we're told that "multi-use" development is more than just a strip center with apartments built on top of it and are asked to swallow that lie. We have White Linen Night in the Heights where the well-to-do dine on peacock, sip wine and wonder how the other half lives. Gone is "Luv ya Blue", In is "We are Texans" (and sure to finish somewhere around 8-8 every year).
As a final illustration of just how far we've fallen, recently Mayor Parker celebrated the return of Blue Bell ice cream in a supermarket that the City subsidized to the tune of $1.7 Million dollars to provide a so-called "food desert" with access to "fresh produce". Or high-fructose-corn-syrup infused ice-cream one guesses?
This is not to say that Houston is a bad city. Because it's not. Despite all of the traffic, smog, hay-fever, mosquitoes, increasingly job-choking regulation and piddle battles, Houston is still a great place to live and do business. Outside of the FoodBorg and certain pockets of those who know better, the people of Houston are friendly, typically generous to a fault and still carry around a great sense of civic pride. It's not the people of Houston that are the problem, it's those who we have elected into positions of leadership. They've dropped the ball. Granted, we've let them over time through inattention and a general sense of disinterest in local politics, but some of the problem is that the choices have been so limited.
In Houston the last three Mayors have been especially bad. Lee P. Brown increased the municipal pension payouts to unsustainable levels and had as his defining achievement a billboard in front of IAH emblazoned with his picture. Bill White tried to cover up the pension mess by hiding liabilities behind the Hilton Americas hotel, created SAFEClear which is no longer in operation due to lack of funding, and took a lot of credit for Hurricane Ike response despite the fact that Ed Emmett (who started off well, but has fallen victim to a severe case of 'Not tearing down the Astrodome on my watch' fever) did most of the work.
Which brings us to Annise Parker, the nadir. Parker has painted a lane of traffic green, reworked the CIP funding process to direct more resources to areas that favor her politically, has spent a lot of time advocating when she should have been governing, and saddled Houston with HER Ordinance, her tactics "fighting" for this have caused the Texas Supreme Court forced to step in and return us to the boundary of fair play. When Parker first ran for Mayor I actually stated that, given the current crop of candidates, she seemed like the best choice. Sadly, despite everything, I was still probably right.
